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Future Cities

Eight billion people, more than half of them already in cities. By 2050, two-thirds. The shape of urbanism in the next century is the largest physical...

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Eight billion people, more than half of them already in cities. By 2050, two-thirds. The shape of urbanism in the next century is the largest physical project our species will undertake. This is what it might look like. Key sections include: Future cities.; The urban century, in numbers; Carlos Moreno's small idea; What is reachable in 15 minutes; What "smart" actually delivers; Where the population goes; Build up, build green; Working with water; Beyond cars; Energy and matter, in & out.

Key sections

  • 01Future cities.
  • 02The urban century, in numbers
  • 03Carlos Moreno's small idea
  • 04What is reachable in 15 minutes
  • 05What "smart" actually delivers
  • 06Where the population goes
  • 07Build up, build green
  • 08Working with water
  • 09Beyond cars
  • 10Energy and matter, in & out
  • 11Recommended source
  • 12Three urban futures
  • 13Indicators · 2026–2030

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Slide outline
  1. 01Future cities.
  2. 02The urban century, in numbers
  3. 03Carlos Moreno's small idea
  4. 04What is reachable in 15 minutes
  5. 05What "smart" actually delivers
  6. 06Where the population goes
  7. 07Build up, build green
  8. 08Working with water
  9. 09Beyond cars
  10. 10Energy and matter, in & out
  11. 11Recommended source
  12. 12Three urban futures
  13. 13Indicators · 2026–2030
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Presentation Transcript

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Slide 01

Future cities.

  • Volume 6 · File 05
  • Eight billion people, more than half of them already in cities. By 2050, two-thirds. The shape of urbanism in the next century is the largest physical project our species will undertake. This is what it might look like.
Slide 02

The urban century, in numbers

  • § Vital signs
  • Urban share · 2024
  • ~57 %
  • UN DESA Population Division
  • Urban share · 2050
  • ~68 %
  • ~2.5B added to cities, mostly Asia & Africa
  • Megacities (10M+) · 2024
  • ~50 by 2035
  • Cities >1M in Africa · 2050
  • ~150
  • From ~80 today; Lagos, Kinshasa, Dar es Salaam fastest
Slide 03

Carlos Moreno's small idea

  • §1 · The 15-minute city
  • Carlos Moreno (Sorbonne, 2016) proposed the ville du quart d'heure: a city where work, school, healthcare, groceries, parks, and culture are within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. Anne Hidalgo's Paris adopted it as policy in 2020. Melbourne (20-minute), Portland, Bogotá, Milan have analogous frames.
  • Why it works
  • Reduces car dependency without banning cars
  • Higher street life → lower retail vacancy
  • Climate co-benefit: ~30% reduction in transport emissions in implementing arrondissements
  • Counter-intuitive equity gain — when paired with rent stabilization
  • forecast Most North American downtowns will adopt some 15-minute-city language by 2030; whether the zoning follows is the open question.
  • Photo · the policy is mostly about taking lanes back from cars.
Slide 04

What is reachable in 15 minutes

  • §2 · Diagram · 15-min schematic
  • After Carlos Moreno, Sorbonne IAE, "The 15-Minute City".
Slide 05

What "smart" actually delivers

  • §3 · Smart city, sober view
  • The 2010s smart-city wave (Songdo, Masdar, Toronto Quayside) made big promises and delivered modest results. Toronto Quayside collapsed in 2020 under privacy concerns; Masdar built only ~5% of plan; Songdo's occupancy stagnated. The 2020s lesson: digital twins and IoT are infrastructure, not outcomes.
  • ProjectLocaleStatus · 2026Lesson
  • Songdo IBDSouth KoreaBuilt; ~70% occupiedYou can't build culture top-down
  • Masdar CityUAE~5% built; pivoted to test-bedClimate goals, scale missed
  • Sidewalk TorontoCanadaCancelled 2020Data governance is a city problem
  • The Line · NEOMSaudi ArabiaMassively descoped (2024)Linear cities don't pencil
  • TelosaUSA · proposedConcept renderings onlyRenderings are not housing
  • Helsinki / Amsterdam open dataEUBoring, workingQuiet wins compound
Slide 06

Where the population goes

  • §4 · Megacities
  • The next thirty years of urbanization happen in Africa and South Asia. Lagos will pass 30 million; Dhaka, Karachi, Kinshasa close behind. Western megacities (Tokyo, NY, LA) plateau or shrink. The infrastructure question is not "how do we build a smart city in Stockholm" — it is "how does Lagos house 10 million more people while running on a 70-year-old grid".
  • Lagos · 2024
  • ~16 M
  • ~30 M projected by 2050. Informal economy >50%.
  • Tokyo · 2024
  • ~37 M
  • Plateau · expected to shrink to ~33 M by 2050.
  • Dhaka · 2024
  • ~23 M
  • Densest megacity on Earth · ~46k/km².
Slide 07

Build up, build green

  • §5 · Vertical urbanism
  • Vertical farms (AeroFarms, Plenty, Infarm), green facades (Bosco Verticale, Milan, 2014), and mixed-use towers continue to evolve. The economics of vertical farming have struggled — Plenty filed Chapter 11 in 2025 — but specific crops (leafy greens, soft fruit, pharmaceutical botanicals) remain viable. The bigger urban bet is mass-timber towers (Mjøstårnet, Norway, 85.4 m, 2019; Ascent, Milwaukee, 86.6 m, 2022).
  • Mass timber by the numbers
  • ~25% lower embodied carbon than reinforced concrete (forest-managed, conservative LCA)
  • 4–6× faster construction at mid-rise scale
  • Code allows 18 storeys in IBC 2021 (US); higher in Norway, Austria, Canada
  • Insurance & lender resistance softening 2023–25
Slide 08

Working with water

  • §6 · Sponge cities
  • Yu Kongjian's sponge city framework (Chinese MOHURD, 2014) treats stormwater as an asset, not waste. Permeable pavement, bioswales, green roofs, restored wetlands. Pilots in 30 Chinese cities; New York's Bluebelt, Copenhagen's cloudburst plan, Rotterdam's water plazas, Singapore's PUB ABC Waters parallel.
  • Why it matters
  • Climate-adaptive: handles intensifying precipitation
  • Heat-island reduction (vegetation cools 2–4 °C locally)
  • Biodiversity uplift; mental-health co-benefits
  • Cheaper retrofit than gray-infrastructure expansion
Slide 09

Beyond cars

  • §7 · Mobility
  • Mode2026 statusPromiseCaveat
  • E-bikes~50M sold/yr globallyQuiet revolution; replaces 30%+ of urban car trips in EUBattery fires; theft
  • RobotaxisWaymo 250k+ paid trips/wk · May 2025Geofenced, scaling slowlyLong-tail edge cases; politics
  • BRTBogotá TransMilenio + ~200 citiesSubway-like service at 1/10 costRight-of-way politics
  • High-speed rail43k km in ChinaDecarbonizes 500–1000 km tripsUS lags structurally
  • eVTOLJoby, Archer, Vertical · cert phaseNice for executivesNot a mass-transit solution
  • HyperloopHyperloopOne shut 2023—Mostly vapour
Slide 10

Energy and matter, in & out

  • §8 · Diagram · Urban metabolism
  • After Abel Wolman, Sci. American, 1965; Brunner & Rechberger metabolism updates.
Slide 11

Slide 11

  • §9 · Voices
  • "A city is not a tree." — Christopher Alexander, 1965
  • Carlos Moreno15-minute city; chrono-urbanism
  • Janette Sadik-KhanNYC DOT 2007–13; tactical urbanism, plazas, bike lanes
  • Yu KongjianSponge cities; landscape ecology, Peking U.
  • Edward GlaeserTriumph of the City; agglomeration economics
  • Jane JacobsDeath and Life (1961); the founding text
  • Saskia SassenGlobal City; financialization & expulsions
  • Lloyd Alter / Brent ToderianWalkable-city advocacy; the "life-sized city"
  • Solarpunk movementBecky Chambers, Kim Stanley Robinson · imagined optimisms
Slide 12

Recommended source

  • §10 · Watch
  • Not Just Bikes · "The Future We Could Have"
  • Toronto-to-Amsterdam ex-pat's channel on Dutch urbanism; the most efficient way to internalize what cities can be. Pair with Strong Towns' video archive.
  • youtube.com/@NotJustBikes →
  • Kurzgesagt · "The Solarpunk Future"
  • 10-minute primer on the optimist-pragmatist aesthetic that has eaten urban-planning Twitter.
  • youtube.com/@kurzgesagt →
Slide 13

Three urban futures

  • §11 · 2050 scenarios
  • A · Solarpunk
  • Civic mixed-use
  • 15-min city is the default. Mass timber, sponge infra, robust transit. Cities decarbonize before nations. forecast
  • B · Splintered
  • Two-tier urbanism
  • Climate-buffered enclaves; informal settlements bear shocks. Privatized resilience. scenario
  • C · Drained
  • Coastal retreat
  • Multiple major cities partially abandoned (Jakarta, Miami, Alexandria). Inland boom-towns absorb. scenario
Slide 14

Indicators · 2026–2030

  • §12 · What to watch
  • Paris & Bogotá implementation outcomes — modal shift, retail, displacement
  • Nusantara (Indonesia's new capital) build-out vs Jakarta subsidence
  • Mass-timber tower record (likely > 100 m by 2027)
  • Robotaxi rides per week trajectory · Waymo, Zoox, Pony
  • African secondary cities receiving > $1B climate-adaptation finance
  • YIMBY zoning reform in US states (CA, OR, MT, MN, CT)
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